What is the title of Lewis Carroll's only two-volume novel?

Sylvie and Bruno is the title of Lewis Carroll’s only two-volume novel. The first volume, Sylvie and Bruno, appeared in 1889, followed by Sylvie and Bruno Concluded in 1893. Carroll originally intended the story to be published as a single book, but its length led Macmillan to divide it into two volumes.

The novel interweaves two contrasting plots. One takes place in Victorian Britain and follows adults discussing religion, morality, society, and philosophy. The other unfolds in Fairyland, where the siblings Sylvie and Bruno encounter magical situations, comic wordplay, and nonsense poetry. This shifting structure resembles Carroll’s Alice books but is considerably more complex and less consistently popular.

The story grew from two pieces, “Fairy Sylvie” and “Bruno’s Revenge,” published in Aunt Judy’s Magazine in 1867. Carroll later expanded those ideas with material gathered over many years. Both volumes were illustrated by Harry Furniss. Although Sylvie and Bruno never matched the fame of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland or Through the Looking-Glass, the poem “The Mad Gardener’s Song,” which appears throughout the book, became its best-known and most frequently reprinted passage.